BOSTON - More than 10 blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. Most if not all of the devices depict a character giving the finger.

Boston police said Wednesday night that one person had been arrested, and authorities scheduled a news conference to provide details.

Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless.

"It's a hoax — and it's not funny," said Gov. Deval Patrick, who said he'll speak to the state's attorney general "about what recourse we may have."

Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a surreal series about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.

"The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger," Turner said in a statement, issued a few hours after reports of the first devices came in.

It said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; and Philadelphia.

"We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," the company said. As soon as the company realized the problem, it said, law enforcement officials were told of their locations in all 10 cities.

The marketing firm that put them up has been ordered to remove them immediately, said Phil Kent, Turner chairman.

"We apologize to the citizens of Boston that part of a marketing campaign was mistaken for a public danger," Kent said. "We appreciate the gravity of this situation and, like any responsible company would, are putting all necessary resources toward understanding the facts surrounding it as quickly as possible."

Interference Inc. had no immediate comment. A woman who answered the phone at the New York-based firm's offices Wednesday afternoon said the firm's CEO was out of town and would not be able to comment until Thursday.

There were no reports from police Wednesday of residents in the other nine cities spotting similar devices.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said he'll seek to punish those responsible, and indicated that the penalty could be two to five years in prison per count.

After Turner made its announcement, Menino said he was "prepared to take any and all legal action" against the company and its affiliates "for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today's incidents."

"Hoaxes are a tremendous burden on local law enforcement and counter-terrorism resources and there's absolutely no place for them in a post-9/11 world," Knocke said.

Authorities said some of the objects looked like circuit boards or had wires hanging from them.

The first device was found at a subway and bus station underneath Interstate 93, forcing the shutdown of the station and the highway.

Later, police said four calls, all around 1 p.m., reported devices at the Boston University Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge, both of which span the Charles River, at a Boston street corner and at the Tufts-New England Medical Center.

The package near the Boston University bridge was found attached to a structure beneath the span, authorities said.

Subway service across the Longfellow Bridge between Boston and Cambridge was briefly suspended, and Storrow Drive was closed as well. A similar device was found Wednesday evening just north of Fenway Park, police spokesman Eddy Chrispin said.

Wanda Higgins, a 47-year-old Weymouth resident and a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, heard about the threat as she watched television news coverage while preparing to leave work at 4 p.m.

Messages seeking additional comment from the Atlanta-based Cartoon Network were left with several publicists.

"Aqua Teen Hunger Force" is a cartoon with a cultish following that airs as part of the Adult Swim late-night block of programs for adults on the Cartoon Network. A feature length film based on the show is slated for release March 23.

The cartoon also includes two trouble-making, 1980s-graphic-like characters called "mooninites," named Ignignokt and Err — who were pictured on the suspicious devices. They are known for making the obscene hand gesture depicted on the devices.

One More

Toothpaste, bouillon cubes new frontiers of piracy

GENEVA (Reuters) - Cheap everyday items such as pens and disposable razors are increasingly being counterfeited and many retailers unwittingly stock their shelves with fake products, companies and officials say.

Once preoccupied with software, music, films and luxury goods like handbags, law enforcement and business experts meeting this week puzzled over ways to fight piracy in bottom of the market goods.

Nestle chief executive Peter Brabeck told a news conference that Maggi bouillon stock cubes were the most frequently copied of all the company's 8,500 products, which include KitKat chocolate bars and Nescafe coffee.

"Everything you can imagine is being counterfeited," Peter Avery of the OECD's directorate of science, technology and industry told Reuters.

"New products are being discovered all the time. The range of products is expanding, and the magnitude," he said during a conference organised by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, a U.N. agency.

Criminals are making money manufacturing fake versions of inexpensive items, which are then slipped into normal supply chains for retail distribution, even in developed countries.

"Tonnes and tonnes" of fake toothpaste have been uncovered in Senegal, to quote just one example, said World Customs Organisation chief Michel Danet, who described counterfeiting of cheap items as a form of money-laundering.

Research by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has yet to be released, will estimate that up to 2 percent of all goods crossing international borders might be counterfeited or pirated, Avery said.

"A lot of retailers may be unwittingly stocking these products," he said. The pharmaceutical sector has had particular trouble with faked drugs mixed in with genuine ones and counterfeited items can be very hard to detect, he added.

His OECD colleague Wolfgang Huebner said retailers ought to be aware of the average cost of the products they buy and report cut-rate deals. These often signal piracy that in consumer goods can cause injury, illness or death.

"If they see cheap branded products they should be very suspicious," Huebner said.

Even kiwi fruit and bananas have suffered copyright piracy, with black-market sellers using falsified brand stickers of the U.S. fruit giant Chiquita and others to get more money for their goods, Avery said.

CANCUN, Mexico - He is called "Super Tonio," and at a whopping birth weight of 14.5 pounds, the little fellow is causing a sensation in this Mexican resort city.

Cancun residents have crowded the nursery ward's window to see Antonio Vasconcelos, who was born early Monday by Caesarean section. The baby drinks 5 ounces of milk every three hours, and measures 22 inches in length.

"We haven't found any abnormality in the child, there are some signs of high blood sugar, and a slight blood infection, but that is being controlled so that the child can get on with his normal life in a few more days," Narciso Perez Bravo, the hospital's director, said on Wednesday.

In Brazil, a baby born in January 2005 in the city of Salvador weighed 16 pounds, 11 ounces at birth. According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest baby born to a healthy mother was a boy weighing 22 pounds, 8 ounces, born in Aversa, Italy, in September 1955.

Antonio's mother, Teresa Alejandra Cruz, 23, and father, Luis Vasconcelos, 38, said they were proud of the boy, and noted that Cruz had given birth to a baby girl seven years ago who weighed 11.46 pounds.

One more

Weird Deer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A DeBary man who was out hunting deer last fall got a big surprise when he took one of his deer into the check station.

Joe Stokes was deer hunting on public land in Sumter County on Nov. 12 and shot two deer, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.

When FWC senior wildlife technician Tim Farley logged in the deer, he discovered that one deer was a hermaphrodite, possessing both male and female reproductive organs. Farley also he logged in another hermaphrodite deer the day before.

"I've been doing this for 27 years, and I've only come across three deer that were 'true' hermaphrodites, those having all of the male and female sex organs," Farley said in a statement.

Robert Vanderhoof, the deer management coordinator for the FWC, said deer that are true hermaphrodites are extremely rare.

LONDON (AFP) - Sue Rogers will never be without her dead dogs and cat after having a diamond ring made from their ashes.

Rogers, from Devon paid 3,200 pounds for the ring made from carbon extracted from the ashes of Lucky, an old English sheepdog, a golden retriever cross called Sam and a tom cat, Patch, a newspaper said Saturday.

"I am delighted with my ring as it means I can have my pets with me at all times," Rogers told the Daily Mail newspaper.

"My animals meant the world to me and even though they are gone they are still with me. It's a beautiful ring and such a brilliant idea."

Rogers, 44, had previously kept the ashes of her pets on her mantelpiece until she learnt of LifeGem UK, which makes diamonds from the remains of humans and pets.

A small amount of carbon from each set of ashes was heated at temperatures of 3,000 degrees Celsius to help make a rough diamond.

The stone was then polished and certified before being set in a gold band.

NZ parachutist releases video of near-death fall

WELLINGTON, Feb 13 (Reuters Life!) - A New Zealand parachutist who survived a fall of 15,000 feet (4,572 metres) after his chute failed to open has released amazing footage of his near-death plummet filmed by a camera attached to his helmet.

"Everyone says your life flashes before you eyes but for me...it didn't really happen," Michael Holmes told ITN in an interview accompanying his video.

"I was just frustrated that this was the way I was gonna die and that was it," he said.

Holmes, 25, made headlines around the world after surviving the fall during a routine jump over New Zealand's Lake Taupo on December 13, 2006. A camera attached to his helmet captured his plummet, which was aired in New Zealand on Monday.

At 4,000 feet (1,219 metres) Holmes discovered his main parachute would not open. The reserve also did not work properly.

Holmes' camera shows him checking his altitude metre as he struggles to turn over onto his back to see what the problem is.

In the final seconds of his fall, Holmes waves goodbye and yells "bye", before the chilling image of his shadow growing larger beneath him fills the screen. The screen then goes black.

A thorn bush broke Holmes' fall.

A second camera attached to a fellow parachutist also captured the fall and what happened after Holmes landed. It shows Holmes, looking like a ragdoll spinning wildly, plummeting towards the lake.

When parachutist Jonathan King located Holmes, conscious and breathing, in the bush, he could be heard frantically asked him: "You ok?"

The mythbusters have already proved that falling into water from more than 200 or so feet will kill you. its like faling onto concrete. if u have ever experienced falling off a high dive, you know what im talking about, lol.

BOSTON - More than 10 blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. Most if not all of the devices depict a character giving the finger.

Id say the parachutist (Michael Holmes) was lucky to have part of his parachute opened, he probably would have been a stain mark otherwise.

ballad of NJ wrote:ATACK OF THE MOONINITES!

BOSTON - More than 10 blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. Most if not all of the devices depict a character giving the finger.

thats on addicting games now.

Ive heard about that. I think the guys got arrested and will be tried in court.

0

"If at first you don't succeed... So much for skydiving." - Henry Youngman

"Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt." - Mark Twain

I just want to add something to the Mooninite thing. Aperrently, Boston officials said that they reacted quickly to the threat and that this is a great example of homeland security in action. funny thing is though, It took them about two weeks to find these so called "bombs."

[quote="PVCMAN"]"We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," the company said. As soon as the company realized the problem, it said, law enforcement officials were told of their locations in all 10 cities.[/quote]